The old ways is the best ways…or is it?

The two articles we read this week seemed to not really like the idea that some people now believe that Proverbs may not be the end all of wisdom when it comes to farming. The specific proverb they quote actually pretty much describes exactly what modern day farmers do just on a giant scale. I’m not sure how extensive the writer of this article’s experience with farmers and farming but most of what they say we should do, they do. One of their biggest points is managing land by planting different crops or not planting crops in that particular field at all. Most successful farmers do this every year, in fact most farmers that are in my area leave forests or even plant them to retain the soil quality. They describe conforming to the contours of the land, most farmers do this plowing their fields according to the hills and valleys of their land. Basically they focus on the negative parts of agriculture, and really mostly the parts that aren’t ecological, and ignore the positives. The author describes how our current system places the control of much of our land in the hands of a small group of people and how it favors profits over anything else. These complaints have little to do with ecology or pollution, it seems that they see a system that they do not like for political reasons and attempt to use ecology as a reason to change it. The reason this is a problem is mostly due to the fact that having an economic issue with our system is completely valid but they don’t use their actual complaints as reasons we should change our system. Making the argument that consolidating wealth is detrimental to most people and our overall society is a completely valid. There are also many ideas that simply don’t work with our society (e.g. we shouldn’t sell land or houses). These ideals come from an ancient culture that had values much different than our own. One idea that the author criticized was the practice of buying and selling land instead of passing it to the next of kin. The ability to buy and sell land, and the preference to do so, actually helps distribute wealth as there are very few individuals with enough money to purchase an entire farm. This results in the seller parceling out land which more people are able to purchase and subsequently farm however they please, which is exactly what the author wants. It’s when farmers pass the farm down through their family that problems with consolidated wealth occur (i.e the landed gentry of the Middle Ages). Land as a commodity allows both individuals to own small plots of land to produce higher quality and more niche foods, and large corporations to run factory farms to produce more affordable staple foods for the masses. Going back to the old ways of doing things may fix some of the problems our modern day society has created, but they’ll bring back the problems that our modern day society fixed. Sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward but this time going backward isn’t the way to move forward.

Freedom of Choice

In Money God and Greed Jay W. Richards makes the case that our consumerist culture is not the product of our economic system but rather our own personal choices. He bases this idea on the Biblical sin of gluttony (one of the seven deadly sins prominently displayed in the movie Seven) as the true source of consumerism and also tells us that there is no clear criteria that defines gluttony and it varies from person to person and that it’s not only a problem for the rich. Basically anyone can make the choice to spend their money on frivolous things they can’t really afford but nobody really makes them. Sure they’re being tempted by ads and product placement but in the end you make your own decisions and you must own up to them. We’re also not talking about buying an extra candy bar at the grocery store but rather living in government assisted housing while driving a Dodge Challenger. It’s not having a lot of money or a lot of expensive stuff but living above your means, taking loans and going into debt that marks the glutton. Buying a new iPhone just to have a brand new iPhone could be a sign of gluttony while buying a new iPhone when all of your devices aren’t compatible anymore probably isn’t. Finding a balance with our money is the key to not being gluttonous and participating in the consumerist culture.

While capitalism is the enabler of the consumerist culture there are also pros to this system. Capitalism creates competition which forces companies to make better quality products and drives the prices down. As a specific example let’s look at the taxi v. Uber controversy see the taxi services in most cities haven’t innovated or changed in the last fifty years and now Uber has come along and offered a superior, and cheaper, product. This has angered the taxi drivers because they are losing business but still don’t change their product sounding the death knell for their industry. Is this necessarily a bad thing? The (semi) free market is deciding who survives and who dies out. We have chosen which company to support with our money and which to let go by the wayside.

But what about the taxi drivers? Shouldn’t they get some sort of compensation for their lost jobs? Yes. Should we limit Uber’s right to expand and hire new drivers? No. See here in the U.S. we don’t live in a “pure capitalism” rather we have attempted to take the best parts of capitalism (better products) and socialism (pick a social program) and fused them. Look at programs like social security and welfare that are designed to help people who need it, find them a job, and get them on their feet. These programs help protect the people while the marketplace helps protect businesses, together they provide for everyone (nearly).

What’s the point?

The hybrid we have created here in the U.S. isn’t perfect and we tend to disagree about how it could be improved, but the fact remains that it does it’s best to protect both business and everyday people. It’s not perfect but we have been able to make it work most of the time.

SCREW YOU HIPPIE     

Unfortunately we didn't really get to discuss that lovely article about hippies by Ayn Rand during class but I know we all have something to say about it. If you've forgotten the article can be summed up thusly (see picture). Essentially its Ayn Rand's bad dream about “hippies” and how far they want to take conservation. Most of the points that she makes are things we all would agree with (none of us want to get rid of most or all of our technology do we?) but that’s the thing nobody ever made any of those arguments. Any conservationist who would make that argument are almost universally mocked and very few people agree with them. They’re the crazy fringe extremists not the mainstream authority on the issue. Ayn is railing against a perceived threat against her way of life because, communists. Yes Ayn has declared a new Inquisition and now we must all find the heretics (conservationists) in our midst and get rid of them so we can maintain our way of life. The conservationists want us to live like cavemen and die at 35 to preserve the dumb earth…except nobody thinks that. Conservationists just want what we should all want for the human race to be able to sustain itself and its habitat so we need to find a balance. Fanaticism either way is not the way to go it only leads to conflict and division. This would only delay progress and won’t help anything.

One of the ways that we do this is to create an enemy out of a group of people who aren’t really enemies of our cause. For instance many environmentalists like to get angry with oil companies because they believe they profit directly from the destruction of the environment and constantly block new research into alternative fuel sources. They site people who begin to develop new fuel sources and then never hear about it again. Basically the news in this country love to talk about something for all of five minutes then never revisit it again. Most oil companies are working very hard at finding new fuel sources so they can profit and they love to invest in independent researchers and buy their idea so they can pump millions into it and develop it much more quickly than any one person can do on their own. But that’s not news that sells so we just get to hear about how terrible they are (any oil spill ever). Creating a scapegoat like this only makes it more difficult to get anything done and slows development to a crawl.

Andy Catlett

What to say about Andy Catlett? It’s mostly about how great the old ways were and how we shouldn’t leave them behind. Technology should definitely not go back to the way it was and some of our ideals do not carry over (read racism) but certain positive aspects of our society have, sort of, been lost. A large part of our social interaction is now over the internet or some other device which some say makes us antisocial. But they seem to forget how it used to be…

Technology isn’t really making us any more or any less antisocial than we used to be it’s simply changing the ways we socialize. Now instead of taking my controller and memory card over to a friend’s house we just get on the same game at our own houses. Who’s to say which form is better? They both have their advantages and disadvantages, it’s really up to everyone’s personal preference. Now let’s look at a more abstract idea the hurry that we see in society. Many people believe that we are more stressed nowadays than we ever have been in the past. Wendell Berry used the contrast between the horse drawn carriage vs the automobile as an example of how we are more in a hurry than we have been in the past. Many people would say the amount we work now makes us more stressed than before and a great example would be my family. My dad has worked many a long hour and deals with a lot of stress. Certain people (I like these ones) would say that 40-50 years ago he wouldn’t have had to do that and would have been less stressed and we should go back to that. Then I tell them that 40-50 years ago my grandfather worked up to 4 jobs simultaneously to provide for the same size family my dad has (wife and 2 kids). Technology hasn’t really changed a lot of WHAT we do it’s changed HOW we do it.

Speaking of retro stuff….

Thanks for reading

Stewardship

Stewardship
Christians in this world need to take control over Creation and use it in a way that preserves it for future generations. This doesn't mean we need to put plants and animals above humans. We need to find a good balance between being able to provide for our own needs and providing the needs for the world's animals. For instance if people in Brazil need to cut down part of the rain forest to plant farms and feed their growing population we need to let them. Here in America we think of the rain forest as an exotic place that needs to be protected because we don't have any where we live. But to the people like who live there its just normal trees and plants that they see every day. It's like an oak tree or a pine tree to us, nobody cares if we clear a small forest of oak, cedar, and pine trees nobody really cares and just accepts it. It's only when we hear about a place like Brazil clearing a forest we get up in arms and try to stop it. Then we wonder why it is people in places like Brazil and Africa are facing starvation. We need to allow people to develop their country and provide for their people.
With that said we cannot simply allow corrupt governments to destroy the land and strip it of resources for their own gains and not give anything to their citizens like in the article we read for class "The Next Breadbasket" where a Chinese company takes over farming operations in Mozambique taking it away from citizens of that nation. The creation of those farms doesn't help the local populace and is not the correct way to handle the development of farmland.

Dominate Creation
When a farmer has a diary cow they take care of it and feed it keeping it healthy enough to produce the milk they need to make a living but if the cow is sick and their son is sick they don't let their son suffer and die. The farmer always chooses his fellow human beings over his cows. This is the manner in which we should care for the world. We need to understand that caring for our world is vital for it to produce the things we need to survive like food and resources but we should not choose it's health over that of fellow humans.

Take the Cecil the Lion controversy from earlier this year that brought a lot of attention to the hunting and killing of lions in Africa. Much of the argument floating around the internet news sites revolved around the idea that these animals deserved to be protected no matter what the consequences. There was a lot of name calling and threats, mostly "killer" and "rot in Hell", being thrown at the hunter.
It didn't matter that he had no idea he killed a lion with a name, his real crime, or that it was being tracked by the Oxford University or that a bunch of upper middle class Americans would get mad at him. All that mattered was that he did something some people didn't really like. Doesn't matter that most people in Africa didn't really care or thought he had simply removed a common pest. They see lions as potential threats and many villages pay trophy hunters to kill lions who are killing their livestock and taking their livelihoods away. They see lions in the same way we see coyotes that there are so many of them causing so many problems that it doesn't really matter if we kill one or two or three or four who are killing our chickens (or goats). Coyotes in the United States could go extinct and nobody would care, they're not exotic or cool enough for us to care here in the USA. In fact many radical proponents of conservation believe that even the lions who are endangering entire villages should be left alone and those villages should just deal with it.
But we as Christians cannot allow ourselves to be dominated by any part of Creation, including the cool exotic ones we don't see every day. We have to choose the well being of humans over the well being of animals. My brother made the point when this was all happening that "if they came up with a way of feeding every person on the continent of Africa for the rest of time but as a result lions would go extinct, these people would pick the lions."

(The Zimbabwe perspective http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/30/us-zimbabwe-wildlife-lion-idUSKCN0Q41VB2015073)

Character+Food
Most of us know the saying "you are what you eat" which originally referred to the effect that various foods had on your body. Nowadays some people have started using this saying with the intent of attaching a type of morality to the diet people choose. For instance some people (mostly on vindictive internet forums) who are vegetarians, vegans or someone who only eats organic foods feel that they are morally superior to people who eat meat, GMOs, and anything that does not fall into their specific diet. This is a mistake and your choice of food should not factor into how good or bad a person is (unless they eat people). Of course there are some exceptions like if someone hoards all of the food while everyone else is starving or steals everyone else's food and I mean actually does this not this non-issue where the developed world has more than the developing or undeveloped world. We produce most of the food we eat and truth be told it would be incredibly difficult for us to feed people half a world away.